Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. Author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), and more recently Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), and Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), his many fans have been badgering him to join the blogosphere for years. The CFZ Blog Network is proud to have finally persuaded him to do so.

Monday, 7 July 2014

THE CROWING CRESTED COBRA – A CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL COCKATRICE?

The legendary
basilisk was originally described in Western folklore as resembling a
relatively small, unspectacular serpent in basic form. Down through subsequent
ages, however, reports of it changed during the endless retellings of myths
until it eventually became much larger, and acquired a cockerel's coxcomb and
wattles, as well as the ability to crow like a cockerel too. This marked the
beginning of the basilisk's gradual transformation into a much more
dramatic-looking yet equally fictitious monster – the cockatrice.

In Africa,
however, there are many modern-day reports of a supposedly real yet
still-unidentified species of snake that allegedly bears a very striking
resemblance to this serpentine pre-cockatrice. It is called the crowing crested
cobra.

INKHOMI – 'THE
KILLER'

Judging from
native and Western testimony, the crowing crested cobra has quite a sizeable
distribution range, stretching northwards from Natal in South Africa to Lake
Victoria and westwards to Zambia and Lake Tanganyika, but is common nowhere, is
greatly feared everywhere, and is known by a rich variety of local names.
Perhaps the most telling of these, however, is inkhomi – 'the killer' – on account
of its infamous ferocity and deadly venom. Said to measure up to 20 ft long
(thereby exceeding even the formidable king cobra Ophiophagus hannah),
the crowing crested cobra ranges from buff-brown to greyish-black in body
colouration, but its face is bright scarlet, and, despite its cobra
appellation, it has no hood. Instead, this exceptional serpent reportedly bears
a prominent bright-red crest resembling a forward-pointing coxcomb, and the
male is also said to sport a pair of red facial wattles. Most astonishing of
all, however, in further parallel to a cockerel this bizarre snake can
reputedly give voice to a loud crowing cry.

Despite its
great size, the crowing crested cobra is often claimed to be primarily
arboreal, concealing itself on sturdy overhead branches in wait for an
unsuspecting human or some other prey victim to pass underneath, whereupon the
snake lunges downward at their head or face, injecting its lethal venom with a
single devastating bite. According to veterinarian Dr Dennis A. Walker, however,
specimens sighted in Zimbabwe lurk among kopjes (rocky hillocks) where they
prey upon hyraxes.

Of course, such
a bizarre, surreal serpent could be readily dismissed as imaginative native
folklore – were it not for the disquieting fact that some evidence for its
reality goes beyond local legend. In 1944, Dr J. Shircore of Karonga, Nyasaland
(now Malawi), published a detailed description of what he claimed were the
preserved bony skeleton of the fleshy coxcomb (to which scraps of red skin were
still attached) and a portion of the neck (containing several vertebrae) from a
crowing crested cobra, which he owned. In a second publication, he stated that
some additional vertebrae, as well as two ribs, a piece of skin, and the tip of
a coxcomb from two further specimens had also come to light, but the current
whereabouts of these potentially significant remains is unknown. Having said
that, any remains believed to be from a crowing crested cobra are highly prized
by native snake worshippers and witch-doctors, so it is likely that this is
where they would have eventually gone.

No less
intriguing is a very noteworthy incident that took place in late May 1959 and
which was subsequently documented by the eyewitness in question, a Mr John
Knott of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Driving home from Binga in the
Kariba area, he accidentally ran over a jet-black snake measuring roughly 6 ft
long, mortally wounding it. Knott got out of his Land Rover to take a closer
look, and was very surprised to discover that this snake bore a distinct crest
upon its head that not only was perfectly symmetrical but also could be erected
by way of five internal prop-like structures. Needless to say, no known species
of snake possesses such a crest, so it was a great tragedy that Knott didn't
collect the dying snake and submit it for scientific examination. In terms of
basic structure, this mystery snake's crest is reminiscent of the expandable
frill so famously sported by Australia's frilled lizard Chlamydosaurus
kingii.

Black
mamba (public domain)

Scientists have
been very sceptical of reports appertaining to the crowing crested cobra, and
the most popular mainstream explanation offered is that sightings actually
feature large black mambas Dendroaspis polylepis that have incompletely
shed the skin on their head, leaving a tuft of unsloughed skin still attached. Yet
although it is true that some supposedly crested snakes have indeed been proven
to be mambas exhibiting unorthodox accoutrements of this type, such a solution
singularly fails to explain the remains documented by Shircore, or the
well-delineated, erectile, prop-supported crest borne by the snake that Knott injured.

CARIBBEAN
COUNTERPARTS

As if Africa's
crowing crested cobra were not extraordinary enough already, what makes it even
more so is that it is not even unique. Remarkably, an extremely similar albeit
much smaller counterpart has been reported from at least two major islands in
the Caribbean too. While visiting Jamaica during the mid-1840s, Victorian
naturalist Philip H. Gosse (1810-1888) documented several eyewitness encounters with
crowing coxcomb-crested mystery snakes there and also on Hispaniola.

In 1829, for
instance, a well-respected physician on Jamaica had observed the dead, slightly
decomposed body of a 4-ft-long, thick-bodied snake, ochre in hue with black
spots, that bore upon its head a pyramid-shaped helmet-like crest, lobed
distally, and pale red in colour. According to the locals, this deceased
specimen belonged to a species famed for its ability to crow like a cockerel
and also fond of preying upon chickens.

Philip
H. Gosse, photographed in 1855

Several years
prior to Gosse's visit, Jamaican resident Jasper Cargill had personally observed
just such a snake emerging from some fragments of limestone rock along a
mountain road. And in March 1850, Cargill's son actually shot one while
rambling with some other youths. Instead of taking it home straight away,
however, he placed it for safekeeping inside a hollow tree while they continued
rambling, but this took them so far away from the tree that they didn't return
for the snake that day. And when one of the youths did go back to fetch it the
following day, this zoologically priceless specimen had gone, presumably taken
by rats during the night.

Gosse also learned
via a friend on Hispaniola that a comparably predatory snake had lately been
spied in Haiti. Possessing a coxcomb and bright red wattles, it would use its
superficially rooster-like facial appearance and crowing ability to gain
entrance into chicken coops without alarming their unsuspecting inmates.

SNAKES THAT
ROAR, SHRIEK, AND MIAOW!

Quite apart from
their coxcomb and wattles, the crowing crested cobra and its West Indian
equivalents have received very short shrift from mainstream zoologists on
account of their decidedly unsnake-like ability to crow. This is because snakes
are famous for their apparently restricted vocal abilities, generally being deemed
incapable of uttering more than a sibilant hiss due to their larynx lacking
vocal cords. In reality, however, this widely-held assumption has been soundly
disproved by a number of different species.

American
bull snake (public domain)

The most famous
of these is the North American bull snake Pituophis melanoleucus. This
sturdy species expels air from its lungs through its glottis and against its
epiglottis with such force that it emits a loud bovine grunt (earning it its
name) audible up to 100 ft away.

Equally, the
king cobra emits deep growl-like hisses produced via pocket-like tracheal diverticula
projecting out from its windpipe and acting as low-frequency resonance
chambers. Moreover, contrary to another fondly-held tenet, that snakes are
totally deaf and unable to hear airborne sounds, research has confirmed that snakes
are actually more sensitive to airborne than groundborne sounds, and that the
king cobra can definitely hear its own growls and those produced by others of
its species.

Most remarkable
of all, however, was the discovery made in 1980 by Philip Chapman from
Bristol's City Museum while participating in a scientific exploration of
Borneo's enormous Melinau limestone cave system, in Sarawak's Gunung Mulu
National Park. While penetrating one particularly dark, deep cave, he suddenly
heard an eerie yowling sound up ahead, like the miaowing of a large cat, but
when he fearfully shone his torch in its direction, Philip and fellow team
members were astonished to discover that the creature giving voice to these loud
cries was not a cat at all – instead, it was a snake!

Coiled up on the
cave floor, this miaowing serpent proved to be a Bornean cave racer Orthriophis
taeniurus grabowskyi - a slender, blue-scaled, non-venomous elapid whose
vocal prowess had never previously been witnessed or even suspected by
scientists. But what purpose did it serve? Inside this lightless cave, these
snakes prey upon fast-flying cave swiftlets, and possess an unerring ability to
snatch them while they are actually in flight, but as they cannot see them, how
do the snakes detect these small birds with such accuracy? The swiftlets
navigate like bats, by listening to the echoes of their own shrill cries
bouncing off the cave walls, so it is possible that the snakes emit their own
cries either to mimic and thence lure the swiftlets within reach, or to disrupt
their vital echo-location and thus disorient them.

Over the years,
many reports of other snakes giving voice to shrieks, screams, and an
assortment of bleats, chirps, and even bell-like chiming have also been
documented, though these have yet to be scientifically confirmed. Nevertheless,
there are already sufficient precedents that have been verified to render the
alleged crowing abilities of the crowing crested cobra and kin far less
implausible zoologically speaking than one might otherwise suppose. So could
such an extravagantly-adorned, vocally-adept snake truly exist in Africa, with
a more diminutive relative (once) native to the West Indies? Sadly, we may
never know. Several opportunities to present tangible, physical remains from
such creatures have been lost, and no fresh material appears to have been procured
for some considerable time.

Consequently, if
the very curious case of the crowing crested cobra is ever to be solved,
perhaps science's best hope is for an intrepid herpetologist to pay a
respectful visit to the domicile of the shaman from one of the many African
tribes for whom such a snake remains a fully-fledged reality, and tactfully
take note of whether his collection of ritualistic fetishes and other magical paraphernalia
include the preserved remains of an ophidian coxcomb and some dried facial wattles.
A veritable cockatrice might yet be revived amid the shadows of superstition
and folklore – though whether that is such a good thing may be another matter
entirely!

Engraving by Bohemian etcher Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) depicting a cockatrice being attacked by a weasel wrapped in rue - its only mortal enemies, according to traditional folklore

For the most
extensive documentation of the crowing crested cobra and other unexpectedly
vocal snakes ever published, be sure to check out my book Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007). And for more information concerning basilisks and cockatrices as well as the crowing crested cobra, be equally sure to check out my latest book, Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013).

2 comments:

The drakones of Medea are usually portray as thick, wingless snakes with a comb and wattles. Here a picture from a vase from the 4th century bc:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M26.1.html

Another one from around 300 bc:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/O28.7.html

And another one here:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M26.2.html

They have combs and wattles in all 3 pictures from different times... so this cryptid might have already been known to the ancient greeks. Interestingly they are described as winged..but no artist seems to have put wings on them...Here the description:

http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakonesMedea.html

They call them "Drakones pterotoi". Drakones often seem to have a comb and wattles in classical greek art even the hydra is sometimes portrayed as bearded/with wattles:

http://www.theoi.com/image/O19.2Naias.jpg

http://www.antiquesatoz.com/sgfleece/images/Jason-Drakon.JPG

http://www.dragonsinn.net/Fiction/hydra%20pix/hydravase2.jpg

And in color the crest is red:

http://www.theoi.com/image/mythology-dragon-hesperian.jpg

The crest and wattles seem to be defining features of the drakones in classical greek art. So the greeks might have known/heard of this cryptid.

Sightings of snakes with exactly same features were reported at multiple locations in Kerala, India by tribes and local farmers. Last known reporting was 2-3 years back by loal farmers at a large rubber plantation in Oyoor, Kerala which is nearby a river. They say it is extremely vicious and usually seen in pairs.

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